WTH are the "automations and scenes" and "devices and services" menus hidden under settings?

[DIY-techie]

I know you can customize the menu bar in YAML to make shortcuts to these menu items, but I think it would make sense for newcomers and experienced users alike to have it as standard/default menu items similar to history and media. Even if you have several add-ons, use maps state history, chances are you are using devices and automations more.

Devices and automations are not settings, but the very heart of a smart home and expecially for new users it is unintuitive.

I agree with the points made in the following threads but thought the topic deserved a refresh this year

Why Automations hidden under Settings instead of its own Menu item?

I am using Home Assistant more than 5 years now. It always felt a little bit weird to edit an automation by going to settings and finding the automations at there. HA at its core is an automation platform. It’s really cumbersome for a user to do more than 2-3 clicks to find a critical peace of home automation. It should have its own sidebar item. I believe Automations are as important as “Energy Dashboard” or even more important than"Logbook". Additionally no other incumbent home automation sys…

WTH Automations should have its own menu item, not be hidden in Settings

It seems strange to hide Automations in the settings menu, rather than having its own menu item. One of the main purposes for Home Assistant is to create or run automations so it would make sense for this to exist in its own right as a main menu item, rather than a layer down in the settings.

[daywalker03 (Matthew)]

Pretty much everything under Settings is an Administrative Function, so putting them in one place makes more sense to me, though I will admit to having been using Linux since 1996, so maybe that’s coloring my viewpoint.

[DIY-techie]

I get the logic, but i think reality is that it would be more intuitive for new users and that it is an extra click every time for experienced users which is tiresome.

[potelux]

Duplicate: WTH the "Settings" menu feels more like an "Everything" menu

[allard77 (Allard K)]

Automations do no need to be an administrative function. I think they are more like files than like settings. Some files are not to be tampered with by users, but some are.

The underlying problem has been WTH-ed and FR-ed to death and it is that there is no decent user right management in HA. As long as any user can edit any automation or setting as soon as they have access to ‘settings’ , the safe thing to do is to put all automations safely away under ‘settings’ so only administrators can edit them. But it’s a stopgap at best.

Fortunately the recent version of the roadmap hints at more extensive user acces management. I don’t want to sound like an angry spoiled user here, I fully understand this is a complex problem and developers have limited time. Let’s hope some of that time can be spent to improve the user acces management issues!

[daywalker03 (Matthew)]

@allard77

Automations do no need to be an administrative function. I think they are more like files than like settings. Some files are not to be tampered with by users, but some are.

I disagree. These are things that only a very limited number of users should have access to, if at all, since a person that doesn’t understand what they’re doing can break what is expected of the automation.

[allard77 (Allard K)]

You disagree? Great! This is exactly why we need to be able to control who has access where. So you can make the settings different than I will.
I, for example, think my kids should be allowed to make new scenes with the lights in their bedrooms. And then decide which of those scenes are activated with the buttons on the remotes in those bedrooms. If they break the automation, fine. It will help them learn.
But they sure as hell should not be allowed to change stuff for my bedroom.